05-15-07 @ 7:58 am EDT

Writing this online 'cause I'm bored.

Anyway, had a psychologist appointment on the 3rd but it was bumped to the 8th, oh well. I just wonder why so many cancellations and stuff there. Anyway, by now I don't remember most of it very well, but it was mostly the same as usual, talk of my twin desires of wanting to stop relying on others' affirmations, but of also wanting to leave something for the world to make it a better place. Face it, the main reason I write is to entertain others, and if that's not happening, I feel pretty lousy.

I brought up the metaphor of my writing being like my "baby": "Say somebody says your baby is ugly, or nobody pays attention to it but you. You're not going to throw it out just because other people don't care about it! So why can't I feel that way about my writing?"

Psychologist really liked that metaphor, so much that she even asked if I'd thought of a REAL baby, to which I kind of snorted and got really amused. "Do you not like children, or you don't see yourself as a good mother...?" she asked; I nodded quite vehemently at the latter, though the truth is it was both, and then some. Bring another kid into this world! The rest of my family does more than enough of that, thank you. And I'd hate exposing a child to this world, much less exposing a child to ME. Ugh, there are enough messed-up kids out there, they don't need me contributing to their messed-upness.

Plus having a baby means having a boyfriend and having sex--at least in the traditional manner--and HELL NO! And doctor's visits, medical expenses, lots of pain--I'd have to be even more nuts than I already am!

But anyway, back to session. She talked about geocaching (she was WAY beyond jazzed when I remembered the term for her), and I brought up letterboxing, which is like poor man's geocaching (for those of us without GPS), and told her of the two boxes I'd left on the island last year and how neither one has been found. She found that cool and amusing, though in truth I'm quite surprised that at least one hasn't been found since I left it in such an obvious place. Oh well. Maybe they WERE found, just by uninterested people. I mentioned how even if my contribution to the world was something as simple as somebody finding a box of my writings in an attic someday and getting lost in reading them, that would be nice, though of course that would be a hundred years in the future and of little benefit to me now.

Anyway, her suggestion/recommendation for this session was to try going without the Internet for a week (or even a day, my choice, whatever), to stop checking up to see if anyone's said anything about my writing, because as I told her, my problem isn't so much with NEGATIVE feedback as it is with LITTLE or NO feedback. Well, I've obviously been coming online, though I do see what she means. I forgot to mention how there have been times when I HAVE gone a while without the Net, because of late bills and outages and such...at the time it felt almost like missing a drug or something. "Is anything important going on?? I can't check!!" I didn't want to feel like I was making excuses though. But I know what she means. I hate relying so much on others, a la my last entry, but it just really gets to hurting sometimes, especially since I had grown so used to getting comments since I've started writing about my therapy. When those pretty much stopped coming I figured people had lost interest, as always. I just got hooked on that feedback and it really hurt when it stopped.

I USED to not care whether my journal got comments or not, back when it barely got any. See how druglike it's become?

When I talked about not posting I didn't mean deleting my journal, I just meant not opening myself up so emotionally online, since it's obvious I'm unlikely to make the emotional connections I need with anybody online. Even Psychologist says so, repeatedly. I just can't seem to find what I really need on the Internet. And I'm tired of the embarrassment and disappointment and pain of finding that out the hard way. Maybe OTHER people can find fulfillment in online friendships...but it doesn't seem to be working for me. Trust me, there are online people who are really nice, and I love hearing from them, but there's still a big emptiness inside me. And nothing from online is filling it yet. It's been seven years; eventually, especially after a long string of broken promises and bad experiences, one gets tired and gun-shy of trying.

So...I don't know. It seems I HAVE to open up to an extent, in my therapy entries at least, but all this searching I've been doing to connect to someone online as more than just an acquaintance I hear from once in a while if ever, it feels like a waste of time. I don't mean to insult anyone, truly; I just don't feel I can rely on 99% of the people I've come into contact with as friends--MY definition of friends. My definition of "friend" seems to vary from the vast majority of online people's so here's my idea of what I was expecting to find: somebody like Mya. Somebody who's interested in what I'm doing, and I'm interested in what they're doing--and we comment back and forth almost constantly. We're big parts of each other's life, and can RELY on each other to be there, without having to prod and prompt each other or throw a fit just to get noticed. Sure, there would be times when we can't be there, but for the most part we are, and we don't go silent on each other for weeks or months on end. We send each other random mails, out of the blue, and make injokes about our interests. We're not afraid to talk to each other about almost anything, and we don't feel like we're bothering each other. And...we're friends on more than just the Internet, because the Internet is nice but doesn't seem to fill that void.

The majority of people online, I've seen, seem content with the the idea of ACQUAINTANCES, since they have real-life friends, or else are just happy with having acquaintances and not friends, so that explains why I've never "meshed" with them. They never had a need or desire to mesh with me. Hence it didn't work. Best-case scenario, we became acquaintances instead; worst case, I ended up badly hurt and embarrassed. In my last entry, I guess I was relying on acquaintances to be friends, which is a mistake. I've long expected too much from the Internet, I guess.

That's my problem. I need to work on it. The major problem is, there's no real way to find friends when one is housebound in a tiny town like Cheboygan, so my lonely state is unlikely to change any time soon. I need to learn to rely on something besides friendship to give my life meaning, and I don't know what that is yet.

Well anyway, Psychologist said at the end of the appointment that she REALLY enjoys talking with me, which makes me wonder how annoying her other patients must be, if she finds talking to ME enjoyable. O_o

...

What have I been up to lately? Mostly coloring in other people's much better lineart, because coloring seems soothing--though I really need to get back to my own stuff--and hanging out at DeviantArt. I like offering stupid little comments on people's much-better work. A tiny way of trying to feel useful.

Ma and I went to Sea Shell City (sic?) the other day and I got a little bracelet, necklace, and toy purse with a flamingo inside for Rayne. Couldn't find anything terribly interesting for myself though. I used to be really OCD about Sea Shell City; every year we went, I'd HAVE to buy a new set of shells to add to my collection. Cripes...glad I got rid of that habit. They have some smallish shells there that cost $30! I hope whatever slug or clam or whatever came out of those things is rare, if its shell is going to cost that much!

Then we went to Gordon Turner Park, because the last time I took pictures there was with the old one-megapixel Polaroid, and I took more shots with the newer camera. Yes, you really can see Mackinac Island and the bridge, even, from the park. I tried photographing them but I don't know how they turned out yet. I want to upload all my uglier 1-megapixel pics to DA before starting on nice ones again so it might be a while before I see them. But I stared at the tiny hump of the Turtle's Back and tried again to imagine that as the place that I'm going to be walking some time this summer.

Dad said that what I do could qualify as hiking, so I am officially a hiker! Not just a walker! I thought hiking involved wearing a backpack (well...I do, but not a heavy-duty hiking one) and boots, carrying a walking stick, and going up really steep trails, clambering over rocks, etc., but I even looked in the dictionary and it said a hike is just an "extended walk," often for pleasure. So there you go! I bet seven hours over mostly unpaved forest trails could count as hiking. I am a hiker!

I just remembered. o_o At the end of the therapy session, Psychologist, when saying she enjoyed our sessions, said it was because I'm so insightful and intelligent--she said something like, "So add that to your list--intellectual, photographer, artist, writer..." I don't know that I agree; even with as insightful as I am, I'm truly lousy getting along with other people (*cough*lastentry*cough*), so...I dunno. But I guess "hiker" could be added to the list. As long as it's made clear it's a hobby, like photography. I don't consider myself a photographer. In truth I'm always surprised when people say how good I am at that, I mean, all I do is find an interesting subject, point, and click. And sometimes kneel or go into macro mode or whatever. o_o

Anyway--Gordon Turner Park. Got pictures of stuff, stuck my feet in Lake Huron (I expected it to be so frigid, but it was SO nice after a brief shock!), then headed toward the stupid lighthouse. There were frigging GNATS all over. They just got worse as I neared the Crib Light. Ugh, I was walking along the pier, constantly waving an arm in front of my face just to keep them from my eyes and nose and mouth. They were traveling in a cloud, going in my direction. So many of the horrid little things! By now I was skeeved out and just wanted to get a shot of that light thing at the end of the pier and go shopping and go home (I skipped sleeping that day). But as soon as I finally reached the light, I looked up, saw that IT WAS COVERED IN GNATS, screamed, and turned and powerwalked back toward the Crib Light and along the beach and to the car. YAGH GROSS!! Only now I was walking AGAINST the gnats so it was even worse. No wonder they were getting so thick, that light thingie must've been their hangout! Ugh! So nasty, just like flying ants! A few even got into my bra... >_<;;;

Nasty little vermin-boogers. I don't recall those the last time, they must be a late-spring thing. Ugh. I do hope the island is free of them and mosquitoes this year; the mosquitoes on the island last year were awful! The island usually HAS no mosquitoes, because the bats keep them under control. :/

I've done 190mi on my exercise bike so far. *sigh*

Still reading my Weird Michigan book. There's a story from 1976 of two lake serpents being seen in Lake Huron along the Cheboygan waterfront! The sheriff at the time saw one too. Mishupishus? And of the famed Michigan Dogman. I think I might do some art of him someday.

We've had nasty thunderstorms lately. A friend/coworker of my dad's got his 130-foot pine tree struck by lightning (poor thing :( ), it blasted out some other trees, put holes in the ground, knocked over the shelves in his garage, and blew out all the electronics in his house--TV, computer, wiring, everything. How nasty. Ugh. Some Animiki missed his target! Then an awful storm passed over last night when I was online, and I turned off the computer, but thankfully it was all noise and rain and flashing. It looks like it might even get a bit of sunshine outside today by now. The Animiki must have REALLY been after the Mishupishus last night! I must remember to go throw some tobacco. We really needed this rain.

Well, I can't think of anything else though I probably had something before. And I'd better post this before something crashes. And learn to accept it whether I get notes or not, because notes can't fulfill my life anyway.